Explanation:
It took three worlds to create this simple image.
The first world was the
Earth, which was quite prominent.
The dividing line running horizontally below the middle separates sea from sky.
On this part of the Earth, it was almost nighttime.
The second world was the
Moon, which was almost invisible.
The Moon had its unilluminated half masked by the red sunset glow of Earth's sky.
A thin sliver of the new Moon was visible, a crescent that traces the bright curving line.
The third world was the
Sun, which does not appear directly.
All of the light recorded in the image originated from the Sun.
The above half-second exposure was taken last week from
Anping,
Taiwan.
A few minutes after
this image was taken the Earth had spun just a little bit further -- forcing the
Moon to follow the
Sun into the sea -- and the
horizon to become dark.